The Department of Parliamentary Services has reset everyone in Parliament House's passwords, including MPs, after an "apparent malicious attack against the parliamentary computing network" last night. There's no details really, just the ABC hypothesising that the attack could be from China. The ASD said they're working on making things more secure and the DPS said there's no evidence any data was taken. We may never know what really happened, but I bet it was some gronk like Barnaby Joyce who got spear-phished (a dating scam imho) and to make him feel better the ASD are calling it a "hack" and blaming the Chinese.
So, umm, the National Enquirer (that zany newspaper full of conspiracy theories in the USA) threatened to release pictures containing Jeff Bezos' "semi-erect manhood penetrating the zipper of said garment", a "naked selfie in a bathroom", a "below the belt selfie — otherwise colloquially known as a 'd*ck pick'" and other compromising images in an attempt to blackmail Jeff into retracting unfavourable coverage in the Washington Post (Bezos owns the Washington Post newspaper) regarding AMI, the parent publisher of the National Enquirer. How do we know this? Jeff Bezos himself published a post on Medium exposing the entire thing and telling the National Enquirer to get fucked.
After yesterday's Glassbox story, Apple is telling developers to disclose if they're using analytics code or remove the code entirely if they wanna remain on the App Store. Hope Apple follows through and shitcans the apps using this code without disclosing it. Also in Apple news, a new version of iOS (12.1.4) is out to fix that group FaceTime bug where you could hear and see what the other person is doing before they answer. The ability to do group calls is working again too. The kid that found the FaceTime bug is getting a "gift" towards his education (he's only 14yo) and his family is getting "compensation" for telling Apple about it.
AMD has a new GPU - the Radeon VII - and of course, Anandtech has benched it. It's aiming to be a class above the existing RX580/590 GPUs that were more mid-range than high end, and compete with Nvidia's RTX2080. Using the latest 7nm fabrication tech, you'd think the Radeon VII would have a solid crack at toppling Nvidia's best in gaming performance. Alas, it's slightly slower than the RTX2080, puts out slightly more heat and costs only slightly less. GTA5 @ 4K, the RTX2080 is 10% faster. Far Cry 5 @ 4K Ultra, the Radeon VII is 5% faster. F1 2018 sees the RTX2080 4% faster. Unless AMD decide to sell these things for a decent chunk cheaper than Nvidia is selling the RTX2080, it's probably not going to be on any gamer wishlists.
Germany's equivalent of our ACCC, the Bundeskartellamt, has said that Facebook can no longer combine user data from different sources without getting users to voluntarily agree to it. In practice, this means Facebook's practice of getting data from Whatsapp and Instagram and smooshing it into a single Facebook dossier on a person can't continue unless "users give their voluntary consent". The Bundeskartellamt goes even further and says that Facebook can't do it for data it gets from 3rd party websites either. Basically any data obtained on a Facebook user from any source except Facebook, can't be linked to that user unless the user agrees to it. Facebook has appealed, saying they need to do this so they can stop pedos and terrorists. Which is usually the excuse a morally corrupt actor uses to defend their otherwise heinous practices.
Just a heads up that the Melbourne EV Expo is happening on Saturday, the 16th of March. If you're into electric cars or bikes, check it out. There will be a bunch of EVs for test drives as well as loads of different electric bikes you can try out on the go-kart track. The bikes in particular had a huge presence last year - they're heaps of fun to hoon around in. I went last year and enjoyed it, so will be going this year too. This year will be even better as I assume there will be more EVs to try out (if not, that's a disappointment) and Wiebe Wakker will be there talking about his trip around the world in an electric car.
The Raspberry Pi foundation has opened a physical store over in Cambridge in the UK. You can now pop in to the shop and get all the Raspberry Pi bits and accessories available, plus get help and advice on any projects. The store isn't so much a place to move units, but more to expose the concept of fucking around with a computer to more people. The more kids that get to see this kinda thing, the less likely they're gonna think of computers as a magical box that does stuff, but something they can manipulate and change. In a world of walled gardens and data harvesting, that's gotta be a good thing.
That's it, see ya Monday!
--Anthony
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